Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S7E18 - Lemonade: Marketing A Negative

Episode Date: May 3, 2018

This week, we look at brands that aren’t afraid to celebrate their weaknesses. As a rule, no company ever wants to point a neon sign at its flaws. But there are a few brave advertisers out there who know there can be incredible power in a negative. Like a brand that advertises the fact that its product tastes awful, or another that boasts being second in its category. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan. You just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year.

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Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. From the Under the Influence digital box set, this episode is from Season 7, 2018. You're so king in it your teeth look whiter than noon you're not you when you're hungry you're hungry.

You're a good man with all things. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. A young man lost his left arm in a devastating car accident. Learning to navigate life without one of his limbs, he tried not to let that fact stop him from pursuing things he was interested in. One of those things was the martial arts. So he walked into a judo school and began taking lessons from a very experienced judo master. The young man actually did quite well despite the loss of his left arm. He made adjustments, held his own with the other students, and learned quickly. Over time, the student asked his teacher, or sensei as they are called in the martial arts,

if he was good enough to enter a judo tournament. His sensei said yes and spent a lot of time training him. In particular, he focused on teaching him one very specific move. It was an extremely difficult technique, a throw. They practiced it continuously. Finally, the student asked his sensei, shouldn't I be learning more than one move? The sensei said, this is a very advanced judo technique,

and it's the only technique you'll need to know if you're faced with a difficult opponent. So they practiced that one move over and over and over. Then came the day of the Judo tournament. Much to the student's surprise and delight, he easily won the first two matches. The third match was more difficult, but at one point, his opponent became so frustrated at being held off by a one-armed man

that he rushed the student, made a miscalculation, and was easily pinned. With that, the one-armed Judoka found himself in the finals. This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and much more experienced. For the first few rounds, the student looked like he was vastly overmatched. So much so, in fact, the referee called for a timeout and was considering stopping the fight. But the student sensei intervened, asking the ref to let him continue. A few moments after the match resumed, the bigger opponent made a mistake

and dropped his guard. And in that moment, the student finally saw a split-second opportunity to execute the difficult move he had practiced for months. The opponent seemed to fumble in his reaction. The student grabbed him, threw him down,

and pinned him for the win. With that, the one-armed judo student shocked the room by winning the tournament. On the way home, he asked his sensei this question. How did I win that tournament by relying only on one main technique? The sensei said, you won for two reasons. First, you mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. Second, the only known defense for that move

is for your opponent to grab your left arm. Turning a perceived weakness into a strength in the world of marketing requires a little judo too. In business, a weakness is considered a negative. So you have to position that negative just right. Know when to execute it and how to throw that negative in such a way that it surprises the competition and pins them to the ground. It's a strategy that is not for the faint of heart. But a few companies master the art of advertising a negative, and they turn a perceived weakness into a strength with remarkable effect.

And the best part is, they win the fight against bigger, stronger opponents. You're under the influence. As a rule, no company ever wants to say something negative about itself in its marketing. In the world of advertising, everything's always coming up roses. But there are a few brave advertisers out there who know that there can be incredible power in a negative. Peter Byrne was a Canadian ad writer who understood this. I always admired Peter because he did something incredibly well

that I wasn't so good at. He could write powerful, emotional advertising. Something I think very few ad writers do well. Peter's secret sauce was his use of searing honesty. In 1986, he pitched a radical advertising idea to one of his

clients. That client was Buckley's cough mixture. Peter wanted to base an entire campaign around how bad Buckley's cough syrup tasted. 65-year-old CEO Frank Buckley was in the meeting that day. His father had started the company back in 1919. Frank knew his product tasted bad, but the company had never advertised the fact the cough syrup tasted awful. In 1986, Buckley's was ninth or tenth in the cough suppressant category, toiling near the bottom of the pile. It needed a bold advertising idea.

The new slogan Peter presented was, It tastes awful and it works. Frank Buckley approved that radical idea that day. Peter Byrne was very smart. He knew a negative message needed a positive messenger. So he persuaded the charming Frank Buckley to be the spokesperson. Peter started writing amusingly honest ads that focused on the negative. One of the first print ads showed a bottle of Buckley's with the headline,

People Swear By It, and Add It. Another showed Frank Buckley smiling with the headline, I'm dedicated to ensuring every new batch of Buckley's tastes as bad as the last. Yet another showed people making painful faces as they swallowed a spoonful of Buckley's. Frank appeared in television commercials too. Hi, I'm Frank Buckley and this is Buckley's Mixture. My father came up with it back in 1919, just about the same time my folks came up with me. Back then people expected medicine

to taste like, well, medicine. So to be real honest, it tastes real bad. But if you do have a nasty hacking cough and you don't have time to pamper it, try Buckley's. Just remember two things. It tastes awful and it works. By focusing on how bad the cough medicine tasted, Buckley's became the number one selling cough syrup in Canada by 1992. As a matter of fact, the bad taste strategy was so powerful, so bold and honest and therefore so unique, that Buckley's dominated the category without having to spend as much as their competitors. Rivals Benelon and Robitussin each spent close to $2 million on advertising in 1996,

while Buckley's maintained the number one position by only spending $500,000. A big part of that success was Frank Buckley himself. He had a warm, genuine personality that connected with people. They understood the underlying message. If a product tasted that bad,

it could only survive if it worked. As Frank himself said in one commercial, the bad news is Buckley's tastes bad. The good news is you won't have to take it for long. Frank Buckley lived until he was 94. I met him at our pirate studios when he was in to record some new commercials one day. Remarkably, he was in his late 80s. Our whole office fell in love with him.

It Tastes Awful and It Works was a success story that proved negativity can sometimes be the best medicine. There is an interesting history of advertisers who chose to market a negative. One of my favorite campaigns from my childhood was for Timex watches. The company did a long series of torture tests to prove how water-resistant and shock-proof their watches were. Timex also had one of the greatest slogans of all time, it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. In one live commercial,

Timex strapped the watch to the propeller of an outboard motor, spinning the watch through the water at 4,500 revolutions per minute. But when they pulled the motor from the water, the watch was gone. The wristband had ripped off threw the watch off in the tank, and I'm very sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen, because we had it all arranged so you would get a picture of that sweep hand still working, as it did perfectly during numerous rehearsals here tonight, I assure you. I know because I have stood in water at least six times this evening, and the watch has functioned perfectly each time. Now, to many, that commercial could be seen as a disaster. A huge negative broadcast to millions because they couldn't prove the watch had survived. Did Timex panic?

No. They simply promised to try it again in another commercial, which Timex did, only this time with a more secure wristband. And when they pulled the watch from the water this time, it was still ticking. The negative failure of the first commercial made the second one even more believable. By 1967, Timex was the number one watch brand in America. Not bad for a timepiece that retailed for $9.95. You know, only Timex, with its exclusive V-Conic movement, can take such a licking and keep on ticking.

Volkswagen became a famous brand when it said Think Small in an era when big automobiles were all the rage. It pushed that notion further when it ran a print ad showing a VW bug with the headline, Lemon. As I always say, that is the most toxic word in the automotive world. The carmaker also called itself ugly and slow in its advertising. Yet VW and its ad agency Doyle Dane Burnback used searing honesty to make Volkswagen one of the most beloved vehicles in history.

That same agency created the famous Avis advertising that told the world Avis was number two, but we try harder. In 1962, Hertz was outspending Avis 5 to 1 in its advertising. So the new president of Avis called Bill Bernbach, the creative director of Doyle Dane Bernbach Advertising. So the new president of Avis called Bill Burnback, the creative director of Doyle Dane Burnback Advertising, and told him the rental company needed to get five times the impact for their ad dollars. Burnback said his agency could do that, but Avis needed to know something. First, Burnback said, we don't take any crap from our clients. We don't allow clients to push us around and tell us what to do. Second, you run every ad we write where we tell you to run it.

Third, you don't change even so much as a comma in our work. Whoa, I can't imagine an advertising agency today having that much courage. But the Avis president had an interesting reaction. He said they wanted Birnbach's agency even more after that. He felt that anyone who talked that way had confidence, and Avis needed confidence more than anything. So the president and Bill Bernbach shook hands, and DDB got to work.

The agency eventually came back with the campaign that said Avis was second best, but they tried harder. No advertiser in history had ever proudly announced they were number two before. They wrote ads that said things like, Rent from Avis, the lines at our counter are shorter,

and number twos of the world arise. On top of all that, the ads didn't show any cars. It was an ingenious strategy, because the underlying message was that the number one car rental company, Hertz, was too big to care, too smug to deliver good customer service. But before the campaign launched, it was put into research to see how people would react to it. The results were not good. 50% of the people hated the idea. That's when Bill Burnback asked,

what about the other 50%? The researcher said, well, they like the ads. Well, they're the ones we want, said Burnback. We're running the ads. Well, they're the ones we want, said Burnback. We're running the campaign. The public loved Avis's underdog message immediately. How powerful was the We Try Harder strategy? Previous to that campaign, Avis had lost money for 15 straight years. In the very first year of We Try Harder, Avis made a profit. In the second year, profit jumped 150 percent. In the very first year of We Try Harder, Avis made a profit. In the second year, profit jumped 150%. In the third year, it doubled again.

By the way, when the advertising industry saw the We're Number Two campaign by Doyle Dane Burnback, they considered it a page one error. Most ad agencies considered the idea shocking and disastrous. Some actually called it un-American. Until, that is, Avis started stealing big chunks of market share from Hertz. As a matter of fact, Hertz was in such a tizzy over the Avis campaign, it fired its advertising agency. By focusing on the negative of being number two in the rental car category,

Avis drove right into the black. Then there's the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel in Amsterdam. As I've mentioned before, it takes advertising and negative to a whole new height. It calls itself the worst hotel in the world. The hotel actually advertises the fact it has terrible rooms, zero amenities, grumpy staff, and bad food. And because it is so honest, it is wildly successful. People just want to see how bad it really is.

We see negative strategies in the online world now too. Amazon and eBay gained credibility when both websites actively encouraged people to leave negative feedback on products, buyers, and sellers. It was a powerful strategy. Negativity built trust. It's a lesson another company would use to get out of a jam. And we'll be right back. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives? Available wherever you download your pods. Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. Meet the Schmuckers. By the 1750s, the Schmucker family left Switzerland for the United States.

20 years later, they changed their name to Smokers. Two generations after that, they changed it again, this time to Smucker. In 1887, Jerome Smucker was living just outside Cleveland, Ohio, when he pressed his first batch of cider. He used Johnny Appleseed's fruit and decided to start a business. He called it Smuckers. By 1915, the business was thriving, and by the time it was incorporated in 1921, Smuckers was offering a full line of jams and jellies with sales topping $150,000.

Ten years later, the Pennsylvania Railroad actually built a special track into the Smucker's plant to accommodate its increasing distribution across the Midwest. And in 1939,

sales reached the $1 million mark. In the early 60s, Smucker's was looking to expand its distribution to New York City. So they hired Cleveland-based agency Wise Advertising to produce some radio commercials.

Founders Mark and Lois Wise cautioned Jerome Smucker that his last name was uncomfortably similar to the Yiddish insult Shmuck and might pose a problem in New York. They leveled with Smucker. You've got a lousy name, they told him. But instead of dancing around that problem, the agency decided to embrace it.

And Lois Wise penned the slogan, With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good. The family wasn't sold on the idea because it was a little insulting. But they soon realized by using a little self-deprecating humor it made a positive out of a negative. So they ran with it

and used the slogan to launch Smuckers into New York. And they were glad they did. By 1965, sales doubled to $30 million. Smucker's stock more than tripled, and their advertising budget increased to $1.3 million to incorporate television as well. With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good. 35 years later, Smucker's ended its relationship with Wise Advertising

and switched to the multinational Leo Burnett agency to accommodate its mammoth size. But it was thanks to the smaller agency that the negativity associated with the name was replaced with humor. Because

with a name like Smuckers, the ads had to be good. The Smuckers weren't the only family to change their name. Back in the 1600s, a family called the Slimans made their money the old-fashioned way. They were pirates. More specifically, they were wreckers, pirates who shone bright lights in the dark of the night to fool ships

into thinking they were headed toward a lighthouse, only to run them aground and plunder their ships. But by the 18th century, they decided to pursue a more honest family business and use their, um,

entrepreneurial spirit to open a legitimate brewery along with a chain of pubs. And to avoid any negative association, they changed their name to Sleeman. In 1834, a new generation of Sleeman settled into

St. Catharines, Ontario, where they opened another brewery. Eventually, they moved their business to Guelph, where they operated well into the 20th century. That is, until they were arrested. You see, pirate blood runs

deep, and as it turns out, the Sleeman brothers had been smuggling beer across the border during Prohibition to Al Capone. The Canadian government wasn't happy, and in 1934, they slapped the Sleeman family with a 50-year brewing ban. Decades later, John W. Sleeman was adopted by the Sleeman family

and, interestingly, was raised in an alcohol-free home. He became the great-great-grandson of the original brewmaster, but hadn't been told much about his adoptive family's murky history. In his 20s, John would go on to become a pub owner, until one day when his Aunt Florian approached him with a recipe. It was the old Sleeman family ale recipe she'd kept locked away for nearly 50 years. As the end of the brewing ban approached, she told John all about the family's colorful lineage

and urged him to resurrect the business. Though reluctant at first, John would eventually bring Sleeman's back to life. Fast forward to 2010, Sleeman's is an extremely successful brand. But while their sales were strong with the 30-50 year old beer drinkers, the 19-29 demographic was lacking. The problem? Sleeman's had a reputation for being a dad beer and needed to boost its cool factor their advertising up until that point had focused mainly on recipes and craft brewing charm so Sleeman's ad agency

decided to look into the family history they visited the brewery spoke to the brewmaster and dug through archives hoping something would spark an idea. And did it ever. As soon as they heard the words pirates and Al Capone, they knew they'd hit the jackpot. It was a badass story that would appeal to the younger market. And John Sleeman was totally on board. The new slogan?

Notoriously good. It put a positive spin on an otherwise negative past, justifying it with a high quality of the brew. They weren't just admitting to their scandalous history, they were bragging about it. The TV commercials

told us the Al Capone story, while others introduced us to the piracy that kicked off the Sleeman's history. Every bottle of Sleeman has a past. A dangerous past. Pirates! Pirates who changed

their name from Slyman to Sleeman took their ill-gotten treasure and invested in something they really liked. Beer. It's a past some people think we should hide, but we won't. The honest storytelling mixed with rebellious characters resonated with 20-somethings. The campaign was so successful, it ran for over seven years. Sometimes marketing a negative means embracing a brand's shady backstory,

especially when that story is notoriously good. It is said that one of the most convincing statements a defendant can make in court is when they admit something that's not in their best interest. The fact they've thrown shade on themselves increases their credibility. Often that too is the case in the world of marketing. But like court proceedings, very few companies are bold enough to expose a negative, fearing the consequences. Yet, if executed with the right amount of humor, honesty, and exquisite timing,

the rewards can be astounding. Buckley's cough medicine took a calculated risk by admitting the unspoken truth about its product, that its awful taste was the reason it worked. That honesty propelled the company from the bottom of the cough category to the very top. Volkswagen and Avis created landmark campaigns by crashing through conventional thinking.

Both shocked the marketing world by celebrating a negative, yet both delighted millions of customers by doing so. Smuckers was a name that was not only unappetizing, it sounded like an insult. But by embracing the negative, it became one of the most memorable names

in the jam aisle. Then there's Sleeman's. It has a long, dark history from pirates to bootleggers, suffered a 50-year ban as a result, but increased its revenues when it chose to tell that story to a younger, rebellious customer base. The stories today aren't just examples of creativity, although the marketing was very inventive. They're examples of counterintuitive thinking. Each flew in the face of conventional

marketing. They were all bold chess moves created by smart marketers who listened to their instincts and by doing so managed to pin bigger opponents to the mat with one perfectly executed move. All it took was a little marketing judo. When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. Under the Influence was recorded in the Terrastream. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer, Keith Ullman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre.

Research, Jillian Gora. Co-writer, Sydney O'Reilly. To see behind the scenes of our show, visit us on Facebook. See you next week. This episode brought to you by... Post-Brandon Prune Flakes. It tastes awful and it works. By the way, feel free to peruse the Under the Influence shop.

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